Scumbag Scout 1v1 guide 1.66x - Video Tutorials Included!

Updated for v1.66.x
Unlock YOUR inner Scumbag!Current Patch Impact - None. Follow the guide as normal. The Chronos Revamp was an indirect boost to the Scumbag Scout Strat imo. Check out the new Chronos profile and see if you agree.

-Added Hero specific strat section, most hero profiles will follow.
-Added Screen shots but made them links to make it easier to read the rest of the guide.
-Spelling errors and readability enhanced somewhat.

x. READ THIS FIRST!

-1v1 is NOT HoN
-The strats that apply in 1v1 games DO NOT apply in larger games
-People that play 1v1 are noobs that cant take the pressure of "real" HoN games

Now thats out of the way, lets press on. Please save all the 1v1 hate replies for a different thread.

xx. STOP READING NOW IF...

-you like to play "with honor", this guide is not for you
-you don't like it when your opponent calls you "cheater" or noob or worse. you will be called much much worse
-you dont like alternative strats for HoN, if you want to sit in a lane and fight your opponent for last hits, this guide is not for you

xxi. Video Index

I plan on adding more videos, clips mostly showing examples of each of the sections in the step by step part. For now everything is on YouTube.

I will start off with a full length game you can use as a reference. This game is good example of the kind of things your opponent will try. My opponent is Chronos and he does an adequate job of trying to stop what I am doing. This is a lot more than most noobs, who will just let you free farm while they fight in front of the tower. Last hitting towers is very important, but I probably took too big of a risk early on the mid tower. I got the tower kill and lived, but it was too close, and not worth the risk looking back on it.

I. Introduction
Annnnnnd if you are still reading, then welcome to my 1v1 Scout guide. I play 1v1 a lot, mainly because I like the alternative strategies that can be employed. The new Scout has a very effective alternative playstyle that works in 1v1 games only. For the sake of brevity I am going to skip the skill descriptions, read other guides or the in game tool tips for those. What follows is a very effective but cheesy way to win 1v1 games with the following settings:

Disclaimer - This is not a fool proof strat, there are ways to counter it, BUT your opponent MUST know how to beat this, else he will just fail and lose and rage. This is only a "meta" strat, all your other HoN skills such as ganking and last hitting still need to be sharp (though last hitting is LESS of an issue).

A. Game Options

Game Mode -Normal (works in easy mode but not as well)
Team Size - 1v1
Map - Forest of Caldavar (you mileage on other maps may vary)
Starting Gold - ~3.8k (default)
Wait until the last second to pick Scout to avoid counter picks***DO NOT SELECT ALL HEROES OPTION OR YOU WONT HAVE ENOUGH GOLD**

The starting items here give you enough survivability to solo an entire creep wave without the assistance of your own creeps. Buy everything on the list and head to the top lane (bot for Hellbourne) and hide in the forest in between the two outside towers. When the creep wave walks past fight them in between the towers. Start with the caster first, then finish the melees. Players familiar with Axe / Lego will be immediately familiar with this tactic and much of the same strategy applies.

While you are fighting, your own creeps will be beating the tower down fast. You should be killing the last melee creep when the next wave arrives. There should be no reason you would, but if at any point you need to heal, lure the creeps through the forest to either the neutral creep camp, or if you want to be safe lure them through the forest back to your own tower. Heal yourself by letting your creeps or nuetrals tank while you gain life through lifesteal. If your opponent is ignoring you lead the creeps to the Nuetrals since you will get exp and gold for everything, further boosting your gold / exp advantage. By level 3 you can kill and entire wave without any help at all, and likely you wont need any help even at lvl 1.

III. Early Game Strat

So now you are comfortably farming creeps by executing the core strat...but what about your opponent? In all likelyhood your opponent will have assumed that this game would be only mid, or at least that your both would start mid. So he will be faced with a choice:

1) He can continue to farm mid in front of the tower
2) He can waste time running up and trying to stop you
3) If he has purchased the right items, he can go behind whatever tower hes at and mirror your tactic

Based on how your opponent reacts, proceed to the next appropriate step in the guide:

Step by Step guide - Countering your opponents reaction
Now lets go into detail on what to do in each case.

A. Scenario 1 - Your opponent decides to ignore you for now - Best case scenario (also most common)

Your opponent has decided to farm up mid in front of the tower as if he were playing a 5v5 game. At this point you nearly certain to win because you are killing and getting gold from every single creep, and you opponent is not. Even a really good last hitter can get maybe half the gold you can get in the same amount of time. Assuming he continues to ignore you, at the 2:15 mark you will be fighting a creep wave, start moving nearer the tower because the tower is getting very low. When the tower is in critical range, drag whatever creeps you have left to the tower. Once you get in range, your creeps will immediately disengage from the tower and fight the helbourne creeps. This lets you easily get the last hit on the tower. For what to do after you destroy the tower refer to the tower killing mini guide.

I say this is worst case scenario, but in reality this plays into your hands nicely, if you keep a cool head and follow this guide to the letter. If your opponent has decided to come up and fight you, you will be level 2 by the time he arrives and you will have vanish. SAVE VANISH! Do not use it as soon as he gets there. If you get into trouble THEN use vanish. Do not let your opponent kill you under any circumstances.

What you want to do now that your opponent is attacking you is calmly ignore the harrassment, and drag the creeps down through the forest towards your own base. This puts your opponent in a very nasty bind. He can either follow you to continue his harrassment, which he knows isnt going to lead any where since you are headed to the tower, not to mention you can vanish whenever you want. OR he can go up to defend his tower and fight the creeps beating on it.

-If he comes after you he is not getting ANY exp from creeps dying meanwhile you are geting full exp.
-If he goes to defend tower (almost always they do this) stop right away and start killing off the creeps like normal. Get back near the top lane in case another creep wave comes you want to be able to pull it too if needed.

Either way you will soon be level 3-4 if you arent already. Finish off those creeps, get 2nd vanish for the run speed and move to mid lane. When you reach the middle lane, clear the creep wave and settle in right behind mid tower. Continue farming the creep waves. If your opponent comes to annoy, invis and go back top. Try and focus on pushing two lanes as hard as you can at first. Leave bot alone for later, unless your opponent pushes it. For what to do next refer to the mini guide.

Scenario 3 - You opponent mirrors you in a different lane - You opponent wants to have a pushing contest. The winner of the game will be whoever can can kill a melee rax first. Scout has the advantage in a game like this due to his run speed and dps. Use the following mini guide to maximize your dps on the towers and take them down fast.

How to kill a tower in seconds Mini Guide

This mini guide works for any hero, in 1v1 or 5v5 if you find yourself in a situation where you are at a tower all by yourself.
Watch the video guide for example of this in a real game.

Steps: (Remember, only do this if you opponent is clearly visible in another lane)

1) Clear the path to the tower for your creeps so when they arrive they start beatin on the tower immediately.

2) Once the tower engages on the creeps go to the opposite side of the tower and start figthing it, stand at MAXIMUM melee range. Use Vanish swipes whenever possible

3) As the enemy creeps appraoch you from behind ignore them and keep beating the tower, the creeps will attack you and nothing else.

4) Continue fighting the tower until it kills all your creeps and starts attacking you. Now back off towards the enemy base out of tower range and heal yourself by fighting the enemy creeps!

5) When your next wave of creeps starts fighting the tower immediately run back and start hitting the tower even if you havent finished off the creep wave.

6) Tower dies. This works on any lane, legion or Hellbourne

The idea here is we are capitalizing on the fact creeps are tanking the tower. This is the fastest way to take down a tower solo that I have found in HoN (without casting spells). If you know of a faster way please post it.

IV. Mid / Late Gameplan

Your first time back to base you should have a ton of cash, here are your goals:

1. Firebrand > Frostburn
2. Countering item such as Nullfire Blade or Nullstone or Demonic Breastplate or Geometer's Bane (depending on hero / builds)
3. DPS item - Savage mace, Shieldbreaker, DPS items can be taken right away if you dont need a a countering item

Justification / Conclusion:

Firebrand is the first item we buy since with Firebrand + Steamboots + Vanish we are at 522 movespeed for the rest of the game. Follow up with Frostburn since that item gives you everything you need including a second orb with a great disable. Hopefully you will be able to buy a full Frostburn when you hit base. Get a monkey asap if you havent already. For the next 14+ levels all you will do is push, then run away, push then run away. If he pushes you push faster. If it looks like you have a lot ebtter items than he has gank him. Keep a steady supply of TP scrolls from the outpost to defend your own towers when needed. Scout has two insurmountable advantages in a game like this:

-Scout can remain at 522 movespeed longer than any other hero
-The new scout has very respectable DPS, enabling him to push lanes faster, and kill most other heroes in the late game

The premise here is that in the long game you will spend less time running around the map due to your max movespeed, and farm more creeps than your opponent due to your high dps. Also you will push the lanes better because of these innate advantages and in the end game your opponent will be pinned at his base fighting off creeps while you zoom to the other lanes pushing, pushing pushing...

Every single time your opponent leaves his lane to come attack you, you gain a small advantage. Every time he stays put to fight creeps in front of a tower, you gain a small advantage. Over time, these small advantages in gold and exp add up. Once you start to reap the rewards of out farming your opponent you can stop running away from him and start making him scared of you. Make sure you buy the correct items to counter what you opponent is building.

Items like Nullstone completely shut down 1 click wonders like Hammerstorm and Andromeda. Arachna is so squishy it wont take you long before you are ready to slice and dice her. Come out of the forest at max run speed and she will probably be dead before she can even cast her ult. You get the idea...

WORST CASE SCENARIO if your opponent copies your strat from the start (if he is smart AND prepared) then he will farm nearly as fast as you can. You still have the run speed advantage, but in this case you will probably have to avoid fighting all together until the very end of the game when his base if filled with creeps. These games can sometimes become a toss up, but i find it very rare that an opponent is both prepared to counter this strat with his starting item selection AND knows what to do.

After using this strat on so many games I have found a couple variations to the items that are worth discussing here in the guide. The first variation I want to talk about is rushing Doombringer + Token of Life.

If you find yourself against an opponent who is very highly skilled he may be copying the strat with a different hero, such as Chronos or Arachna or Pestilence. You may find it hard to get much, if any, gold or experience advantage. In these situations you may consider rushing a Doombringer.

If you get all the tower kills you can have your Doombinger in 12 minutes. Ive done it as early as 10 minutes, but on average, the 12 min mark is when you will have enough. As soon as you have it, immediately go kill Kong it should take more than 20 seconds to kill him.

Now its time to hunt. Find your opponent and come out of the woods, your vanish swipes + disarm + crit + Doombringer will shred them instantly. You should be able to get a free kill.

If they escape somehow, or are just really skilled players and you cant beat them, DO NOT try to force a kill. Just go to a lane and start farming. Follow the strat and avoid your opponent, with Doombringer you can push faster than he can. Overrun him with creeps and win that way. If you lose your Token of LIfe play very very safely until you can get another one. If you lose your Doombringer, the game is over. Theres no coming back from it.

This is an all or nothing strategy. It should be used only when you think you are outclassed, or if you get behind early on for some reason. Its a gamble but the risk vs. reward is balanced. I will be posting some videos demonstrating this technique, for now watch part 2 of the Blood Hunter demo to see what it can do.

Adjusted Strat: Chronos is the hero to beat, and due to the popularity of this guide you may find many Chronos players out there who want to mirror it. Against this type of Chronos try rushing a Doombringer + token (see alternate strat 1). Then try and get a free "surprise I tripled my dps" kill right away. If that doesnt happen, go back to avoiding him nonstop. If you cant beat him, just play around him with Barbred Armor. Chronos wont use his bubble while barbed is on, this gives you plenty of time to escape him.

While all this is going on, the Doombringer lets you destroy his buildings in seconds. So if you play it safe, even vs. a really good Chronos you should still win. Just dont let him bait you into fighting him, unless you are far ahead in gold and levels. Chronos can and will kill you. If you lose your Doombringer, its gg right there. If you are facing a noob Chronos who fight in front of the tower or gets noob starting items, just use the guide as normal.

**Update: Chronos Revamp: As of patch 1.66 Chronos has had a major overhaul. Lets be clear on this, he is MUCH better overall in 5v5 games, but his bash change and Rewind change make him more vulnerable to a scout using this strategy. First lets look at the reworked bash, basically perma stun is NOT achievable anymore. Chronos gains a really nasty AGI drain in exchange for this but as scout we can negate those effects.

Fighting the new Chronos requires patience. He cant perma stun you so you must bait his ult by first casting your ult on him. In my experience, if you ult him then walk near him to engage 99% of the time he will ult you, pop his elder parasite and start to shred you. This is what you want to happen, he wont kill you inside the bubble, you must use your runspeed advantage + invis to escape and let the effects of the agi drain wear off. Then heal up and engage him while his ult is down. He cannot beat you in a pure 1v1 fight any more if you take ults out of the equation. The Rewind nerf makes him a lot squishier and a lot more vulnerable to disarm. To beat him just vanish swipes him, then juke until you can vanish swipe again...repeat until he runs or is dead.

I am NOT saying that the best way to beat Chronos is to go around trying to gank him non stop. Stick to the guide as much as possible, but do so now with the confidence that you can win a fight where no ults are involved...Hero Profile: Pestilence

Scout's advantages: Late game DPS, long distance run speed, DisarmScout's disadvantages: Pest can chase Scout, Vanish is less useful, Pest has a stun, Scout has low armor and hps to begin with and pest's ult spreads the gap even further.Counter Items: Helm of the Black Legion, Nullfire Blade, Geomancer's Bane, Bracers

Adjusted Strat: Ignore the starting item list and buy a Helm of the Black Legion and either a bottle or boots as your starting items. You will not be fighting behind the tower right away. Helm gives us early game invincibility so we go to mid or whatever lane Pest starts out in and play him straight up for a while. You MUST out farm him at this point. Don't worry, his stuns and attacks wont hurt you with your Helm, you can basically ignore him and focus on last hitting while he wastes mana and time trying to bully you out of the lane.

With Helm and Vanish you should be able to stay in your lane forever, force him to go back to base first and gain a slight gold / exp advantage. Once you get steamboots and slash you can start pushing the lanes as described in the guide. Follow-up items could be either Nullfire or Shivas. Geomancers Bane could be considered, since scout images can Disarm, and your images can cause him to waste his stuns and ult etc.

Adjusted Strat: Arachna isn't necessarily a tough opponent, but she is such a common last-second pick it worth profiling her. Keep the same starting items. If arach has any clue at all she has bought a helm of the black legion / iron shield. She can go behind tower and give you a real good run for your money in tower killing speed. You may get behind a bit early but once you get your run speed advantage in place you will start outfarming her by a lot. The new item that give 4 seconds of physical damage immunity is an excellent coutner to her ult. If she ults you click immunity and click your ult on her. By the time your ult fires her spider will be dead having done no damage and you will be invis about to slash her to pieces in seconds. Blademail is great too. If at any time you feel like she is a danger to you stay away from her and press your run speed and farming speed advantage until you have enoug tiems to beat her or the creeps overrun her.

*New Tip: If you activate your Barbed Armor it will kill the spiderling the first time it hits you. I'm not sure if thats intended but as of right now it works so use it until the change it imo.

Adjusted Strat: Just get regular marchers instead of the steamboots. If lego goes behind a tower and has Post Haste and a couple Bucklers you will need to make Post haste right away. If lego isnt behind a tower or has different boots feel free to get Steamboots or Post Haste whenever you like. Assuming he has the Post haste you are in for an intense game. Just forget about trying to kill him. Yes its possible, but you have to commit too many items to even have a 50/50 chance of winning. Much better to simply never fight him directly ever. Use you superior run speed and post haste to push your lanes faster. Buy only items that will help you kill towers and lanes faster. Just get Slash for the run speed boost, no need for Hack since we arent going to fight him. Divine Rapier is great for backdooring. Backdoor is your friend, you can bet he will be doing it too. Avoid him the entire game and you will out push him just like all the others.

Hero Profile: Succubus

Scout's Advantages: Run speed, Pushing speedScout's Disadvantages: Succubus can kill you and permanently disable you, Succubus can escape from you any timeCounter Item's: Nullstone, Slash, Geometer's Bane, Shrunken Head

Adjusted Strat: Succubus aka Atropos is a well known 1v1 powerhouse. Good versus just about any hero, she is a very common last-second pick. If you know you are playing a pro Succubus, dont buy Steamboots. Get regular marchers to start and upgrade them to Post Haste asap. As soon as you can afford post haste and slash head to base. Avoid engaging in fights unless you are 100% sure you have sufficient gold / exp advantage to get a kill. Succ cant push a lane for ****, that is her only weakness. We MUST exploit this weakness by abusing our movespeed and using post haste liberally. If you are doing it right when you hit lvl 16 you should be a way ahead in towers and gold so buy what you need and either keep pushing to be safe or get some kills. When in doubt, run away and farm. Succ just cant kill creeps, its easy to overrun her lanes.

Hero Profile: Blood Hunter

Scout's Advantages: Run Speed, Disarm, Invis protects from Rupture
Scout's Disadvantages: Can some times get cheesed by rupt
Counter Items: DPS

Blood Hunter is another very common last second pick. Blood Hunter has a lot of 1v1 power mainly due to his silence. His ult typically becomes a damage moderate nuke + Immob. BH got a huge boost to his Rupture ult in 1.50, it can no longer be removed by anything, including shrunken head. This makes dealing with him a bit trickier, but he is still easy to beat.

BH's main weakness is that he wont have any lifesteal items because he relies on his blood orgy skill to heal him self AFTER he gets a kill. THis wont help him at all during your fights. If he does have a life steal item then he will be way behind on DPS by the time you have lvl 4 vanish.

Just follow the strat as normal to start. Around lvl 6 he will come after you. Position yourself as far from the towers as possible so you have some room to fight him when he shows up. He will either lead with Rupture or Silence, or he may put both on you. As soon as you hear the rupture noise hit the H key (you should be hovering over it waiting for the noise). If there are enemy creeps in range start hitting them to heal yourself, if not just stand there and wait for him to come for you.

YOU CAN BEAT HIM as long as you dont take much rupture damage. His silence makes you a killing machine OR if he saves his silence for himself you can vanish swipe him to death. If he runs out of melee range while ruypture in still on you hit H again, DO NOT chase him around thats what he wants. Rupt doesnt last long and after its over you can have you way with him.

**Tip: Bind your inventory slots to the side mouse buttons. This makes clicking boots and other clickies like shrunken instantaneous.

VII. The Clones - Other heroes that can effectively use this strat

All of these guys can mimic this strat effectively. None of them do it as well as Scout does, and none of them can beat a Scout player doing it, but if you are feeling like a little variety they can get the job done for the most part.

The new Magebane is a real 1v1 powerhouse, and he can blink travel as fast as Scout. His manaburn orb is great. He lacks Disarm, but hey hes not Scout...

The Madman travels slower than Scout overall but otherwise plays nearly identical. You can use the same item builds if you like or find custom Madman builds. Get brutalizer.

Chronos has a worse blank than Magebane and is slow, but he can normally out farm most opponents using these farm and run tactics.

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Final Note:

This guide is a work in progress I have screen shots to upload and I will work on the formatting to make it more readable as well. Let me know what you think, and PLEASE save all the 1v1 flames / hate for another thread. I already know 1v1 is a trash format for trash players who are bad at HoN etc. Some ppl dont care and sitll like 1v1 anyways and that is who this guide is for.

Posted a screen shot illustrating the tactic in action. Granted this guy was COMPLETELY unprepared for it. As a rule of thumb go into every game expecting your opponent to be ready for you from the start.

Hilarious. What happens if you wind up versus Legionnaire, who does the exact same thing to you? I suppose his push would end at your last tower in a lane (where you can't derail the creeps too well), and you'd eventually overpower him lategame.

haha so funny how that guy raged... i too expected a troll post but im glad it wasnt. even though i dont find 1v1 that much fun, this might be worth trying just to see their reaction if they arent prepared for it

Really good pushers CAN get ahead of you early game, before you finish slash and start exploiting your superior movespeed and DPS. IN these instances it takes experience to know when to run and when to fight. Defiler really cant do much to you once you get enough hps / magic armor to live through her spike of dps. Just poke and prod her until she pops he ult. Wait patiently for it to expire then zoom in with max run speed and rape her. She may get push towers down fast but keep in mind if she leaves you alone you are getting the gold from every single creep, even defiler cant do that.

Stick it out and get your movespeed and dps advantage in place asap. Defiler and other heroes come built in with early game irritations but you are playing a long game here, dont get upset if they get a little ahead early and dont panic.

He shouldnt be killing you if you are doing it right...you are faster than valk and valks starfall is next to useless vs you. Also you are some what tankier than valk and she runs in panic when you disarm her...

In any case this tactic wont make up for sheer bad decisions during the game. Try it a few times, like anything else it takes practice. Tell us more about how you lost and maybe we can figure out where u went wrong.